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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



Francis Browne Stockbridge 



. 



!•!■ I 1YI.K! H IN I HE 



SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



Fifty-third Congress, Third Session. 




PUBLISHED B \ 1 <••'• : ' INGRESS. 




Of WASH^ 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OKKICE. 

1S95 






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CONTENTS. 



Page 



Memorial address by — 


5 

.• I 


Mr. ClILi ,OM - 


21 




14 

Ii) 


Mr McMillan 


IO 


Proceedings in the House 

Memorial address by — 

Mr. AlTKEN . 


3< 
79 


Mr. A.VERY 


... _ . 7; 




_ 70 


Mr DlNGLEY . .. ... 

Mr. Gorman . . _ .. 

Mr. Griffin of Michigan . 


55 

63 

.. 43 


Mr. Grout.. . 

Mr. Linton .. ._ 


48 

60 


Mr. Thomas 


36 


Mr. WeadoCK . 


67 




3 



Death of Senator Stockbridge. 



Proceedings in the Senate. 

May i, 1894. 

Rev. W. H. Milburn, D. I)., the Chaplain of the Senate, 
made the following prayer: 

O Eternal God, enveloped in a thick cloud of sorrow we 
come before Thee to-day and pray that Thou wilt grant 
Thy blessing to the Senator from Alabama, bereft by the 
loss of his beloved wife, and to the wife who is widowed 
by the death of the Senator from Michigan. Shine upon 
them, O Lord Christ, with Thine infinite tenderness and 
human sympathy in this the time of their bereavement and 
grief, and stretch forth Thy hand to succor, and comfort, 
and bless them. 

Thou only art our refuge in the time of our loss and 
pain. But we bless Thee that we may trust in Thine 
infinite mercy, for Thou art touched with the feelings of 
our infirmities. 

Sanctify these bereavements, Lord, to all of us, and 
help us to walk this way of human life, which leads so 
surely to the grave, in courage and faith and hope, with 

5 



6 Proceedings in the Senate. 

brotherly kindness and charity, remembering that the 

places which know us now shall shortly know us no more, 

but we shall carry the record of our deeds and lives into 

Thy presence. And O, that we may be ready to enter 

with joy into that home where there shall be no more 

separation, nor death, nor pain, we pray through Jesus 

Christ our Saviour. Amen. 

***** 

ANNOUNCEMENT OF DEATH. 

Mr. McMillan. Mr. President, I am called upon this 
morning to perform the saddest duty that ever falls to the 
lot of a member of this body — to announce to the Senate 
the death of a colleague. Suddenly, painlessly, Francis 
Browne Stockbridge died at 7 o'clock last evening, at 
the home of his nephew, Mr. James L. Houghteling, in 
Chicago. Four weeks ago yesterday he dropped his work 
here to make a journey to the Pacific Coast, hoping that a 
month's absence would work the restoration of the health 
of his wife, who accompanied him. Before reaching Chi- 
cago he was taken ill on the train, and for two weeks his 
life hung in the balance. Only yesterday, however, there 
came a letter written by himself, in which rapid progress 
toward recovery was hopefully announced, only to be fol- 
lowed in the early evening by the brief message telling of 
his death. 

At a later date I shall ask the Senate to pay to his 
memory those tributes so justly due to one whose genial 
presence and whose kindly nature are now a loved re- 
membrance to us all. It should not go unsaid, however, 
that to-day there is sincere mourning throughout the State 



Proceedings in the Senate. 7 

of Michigan over the death of one who has long been 
closely and conspicuously identified with her interests. In 
the truest sense of the word he was one of her sons. He 
loved her forest solitudes no less than her busy cities. All 
his life long he had stood shoulder to shoulder with her 
people; he had a place in their hearts; and as the families 
gather about their firesides to-night it will be said of him: 
"He was a good neighbor and a true friend." 

To the brave wife whose physical sufferings are now 
added to by this weight of sorrow, and to the bereaved sis- 
ters, I venture, in the name of the Senate, to send the syin- 
pathv of those who honored and respected him, whose 
loss they so sincerely mourn. 

Mr. President, I ask the consideration by the Senate of 
the resolutions which I send to tin- de>k. 

The Vice-President. The resolutions submitted by 
the Senator from Michigan will be read. 

The Secretarv read the resolutions, as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senale ha> heard with great sorrow the announcement of 
the death of the Hon. FRANCIS B. Stoi KBRIDGE, late a Senator from the State 
of Michigan. 

A', solved, That a committee of seven Senators be appointed by the Vice-Presi- 
dent to join such committee as maybe appointed by the House of Representa- 
tives to attend the funeral at Kalamazoo, Mich., and that the necessary expenses 
attending the execution of this order be paid out of the contingent fund of the 
Senate. 

Resolved, That the Secretarv communicate these resolutions to the House of 
Representative-. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased 
the Senate do now adjourn. 

The Senate, by unanimous consent, proceeded to consider 
the resolutions, and they were unanimously agreed to. 

The Vice-President, before announcing the result, ap- 
pointed as the committee under the second resolution Mr. 



8 Proceedings in the Senate. 

McMillan, Mr. Frye, Mr. Washburn, Mr. Cullom, Mr. Jones 
of Arkansas, Mr. Gibson, and Mr. BlancharGl. 

Thereupon the Senate adjourned until Wednesday, May 
2, 1894, at 11 o'clock a. in. 

January 25, 1S95. 
Mr. McMillan. Mr. President, I desire to give notice 
that on Saturday, the 9th of February, at 3 o'clock p. m., 
I shall submit resolutions on the death of my late col- 
league, Senator Stockbridge. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 

February 9, 1895. 
Mr. McMillan. Mr. President, I ask leave to submit 
for adoption the resolutions which I send to the desk. 
The Vice-President. The resolutions will be read. 
The Secretary read the resolutions; and they were con- 
sidered by unanimous consent, and unanimously agreed to, 
as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death of 
Hon. Fkamis B. St/OCKBRIDGE, late a Senator from the State of Michigan. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased the busi- 
ness of the Senate be now suspended to enable his associates to pay proper tribute 
to his high character and distinguished public services. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to the House of 
Representatives. 

9 



io Address of Mr. McMillan of Michigan. 



Address of Mr. McMillan 

Mr. President: The late Francis B. Stockbridge oc- 
cupied what may well be called Michigan's historic seat 
in this body. In 1835 the people of Michigan, claiming 
their rights under the ordinance of 1787, organized and 
put into full operation a State government and sent to this 
body Lucius Lyon and John Norvell. For nearly fourteen 
months these two Senators-elect were kept in the Senate 
corridors, until the boundary dispute between the young 
State and Congress was settled as such disputes are usually 
settled — in favor of the stronger party. 

On taking his seat in the Senate, January 26, 1837, Mr. 
Lyon was assigned by lot to the first class; and after serv- 
ing in the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses he 
gave way for Augustus S. Porter, elected by the Whigs, 
who had an accidental majority in the legislature of 1840. 
Five -sears later Lewis Cass entered the Senate. Among 
all the Commonwealth builders of the Northwest, Cass was 
the most distinguished. By just and honorable treaties he 
had obtained the extinguishment of the Indian title to 
lands that comprise not less than one-fourth of the present 
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michi- 
gan; and as Secretary of War and minister to France under 
Jackson he had won fame at home and abroad. 

During the twelve most eventful years when the Consti- 
tution was 011 trial he stood with Webster and Clay as its 
defender, and during that period was the Presidential can- 
didate of his party. It was during his second term in the 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. n 

Senate that the movement to resist the extension of slavery 
north and west took definite shape; and nowhere was this 
movement stronger than in Michigan, where it found ex- 
pression in the first Republican State convention, held at 
Jackson on the 6th day of July, 1854. Of the members of 
that convention Chandler, Bingham, Jacob M. Howard, and 
Christiancy afterwards were elected to this body. It is not 
necessary for me to do more than to advert to the fact that 
for eighteen of the most trying years of this Government 
Zachariah Chandler represented in the Senate the uncom- 
promising loyalty of Michigan. Sustained and supported 
by his State, he was an aggressive leader; and after a brief 
intermission he was elected to this body for a fourth time, 
and he died in the harness. 

It was during the years immediately following the war 
of the rebellion that the vast natural resources of Michigan 
became available. These conquests over nature called 
into prominence a new class of men. The State of Michi- 
gan held in trust for the whole country a series of water- 
wavs and a wealth of iron, copper, timber, and salt which 
needed but the fostering care of the Government to supply 
the people of this country with cheap transportation and 
cheap raw materials. As Cass represented Michigan's 
devotion to the Constitution, and as Chandler represented 
Michigan's intense loyalty to the Union, just as truly, 
though less conspicuously, Mr. Stockbridge represented 
the commercial enterprise of his State. 

Like his illustrious predecessors, Mr. Stockbridge was 
a native of New England, having been born in the town 
of Bath, Me., on the 9th day of April, 1826. Then, as 
now, the first ambition of a New England boy was to 



12 Address of Mr. McMillan of Michigan. 

establish himself in Boston; and thither young Stock- 
BRIDGE went at the age of seventeen. Equipped with 
an excellent common-school education, for four years he 
received a solid business training in one of those large 
wholesale houses which were at that time centers of trade 
for the entire country. But when the smell of pine is an 
inheritance it rarely happens that one loses his inborn love 
of the woods and its product, and it was altogether natural 
that on attaining his majority the young man should seek 
the bustling young city of Chicago as the scene of his 
activities and the lumber trade as a means of building his 
fortune. 

In 1 85 1 his outlying interests drew him to the source of 
his supplies in Allegan County, Mich.; and a few years 
later he made his home in Kalamazoo, where he became 
a very considerable part of Michigan's "big village," as 
the place was known until a few years ago, when it 
became a beautiful city. As a member of the staff of the 
great war governor, Austin Blair, Mr. Stockbridge ac- 
quired the honorary title of colonel, by which he was 
familiarly known, probably because the rank served well 
to record a sort of half paternal, half friendly relation in 
which he stood to the people among whom he had made 
his home. 

In 1869 he represented his district in the State legis- 
lature, and two years later he received the not unusual 
promotion to the State senate. Careful, conscientious, 
industrious, and clear-sighted in all his legislative work, 
his genial nature and his readiness to assist in every good 
work made friends fur him all over the State, and but for 
his own expressed wish undoubtedly he would have been 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 13 

called to the executive chair. Instead, he came to this 
body in [887 as the especial representative of rapidly 
developing- and vigorous western Michigan. 

What battles he fought against circumstances we do not 
know. In the end he conquered and became what the 
world terms a "successful " man, with large interests not 
only in his own State, but also in the South and the far 
West. Liberal by nature, he used his wealth to build up 
the industries of his town and to establish, strengthen, 
and maintain its charities. Happy in his domestic life, 
he left a widow to mourn the loss of a devoted husband, 
and main relatives to regret keenly the taking away ol 
one who had been as a father to them. 

Of his work in the Senate it is unnecessary to speak 
bere further than to say that when his first term was draw- 
ing to an end the voice of Michigan, as interpreted with a 
verv large degree of unanimity by the legislature, was for 
his return. He had satisfied the people of his State. We 
who were accustomed to his presence in this Chamber can 
testify to his devotion to the interests of his country, his 
State, and his party ; and when on April 30 of last year 
death came upon him suddenly as he was caring for an- 
other it was the universal feeling here that a wise counselor 
and a devoted friend had been taken from us. 



14 Address of Mr, Frye of Maine. 



Address of Mr. Frye. 

Mr. President: Maine never loses interest in her sons 
who leave to engage in life's conflicts elsewhere, and she 
always rejoices in their successes. She is proud of the boy 
who left as a sailor before the mast, then became one of the 
heaviest shipowners on the Pacific Slope, then governor of 
California, and now a United States Senator; and of an- 
other born on one of her hillside farms, educated in her 
public schools, graduated from one of her colleges, who 
then went West, became a successful business man, then 
represented his adopted State of Minnesota in the national 
House of Representatives, and now is a colleague of ours 
in this Chamber. These men, and such as these, are a 
State's jewels. 

I think, Mr. President, that Maine equips her children 
fairly well for such contests. She has always been a bor- 
der State, almost entirely surrounded by ocean and by a 
foreign land. She is located in the extreme northeast of 
the Republic. Her early history was one of cruel war. 
The price of a livelihood was always a struggle; if sought 
offshore, a ceaseless contest with wind and wave and rock- 
bound coast; if inshore, then the conquering of the pri- 
meval forest and the revealing of land which never laughed 
with a harvest when tickled with a hoe, but responded 
onlv to hard work. Her climate is severe, her winter long 
and cold. 

Mr. President, these conditions, seemingly unfavorable, I 
think combine to make her people self-reliant, courageous, 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 15 

patient, economical, thrifty — legacies to her children of 
infinitely greater value than ease, luxury, and money. 

Senator Stockbridge, to whose memory we are to-day 
paying tribute, was one of these boys. He was born in the 
shipbuilding town of Bath, of good old New England stock 
on both sides. His father was an eminent physician in 
that section of the State, but of course in those days with a 
small income, and could give his son only the advantages 
of the common schools, with a term or two in an academy. 

Young Stockbridge, at the age of sixteen years, self- 
reliant, started out for himself; went to Boston in a store. 
He was adventurous and bold and soon found that his 
counter was altogether too narrow for him. He went 
West, located in Chicago, then far distant from the home 
of his birth. He engaged in the lumber business, it may 
be, inspired to it by the whispering pines of his own native 
State. 

He was sagacious and cool, but bold. ^In all of his 
proposed investments he was his own explorer, his own 
counselor, depending entirely on his own judgment. He 
regarded contracts, whether written or oral, as sacred, and 
observed them with the strictest fidelity both in letter 
and in spirit. He was a strictly honest man, and was not 
long in gaining a reputation which insured to him all the 
credit he needed for his extensive operations. 

He was a man thoroughly familiar with men. Having 
been poor himself, he sympathized with the poor, gained 
the entire confidence and esteem of all his employees, 
always treated them not only justly, but generously; so 
his extensive operations were never crippled by strikes 
nor injurious combinations. It was not long before he 



1 6 Address of Mr. Frye of Manic. 

became one of the great lumber kings in the West and 
had acquired wealth. 

Mr. President, I have observed too frequently that when 
men seek riches they are apt to acquire a love for money 
itself — one of the most debasing of the passions of the 
human heart. Not so Mr. Stockbridge. He seemed to 
think he was a steward for his Lord, and that the prop- 
erty he acquired was a trust to be administered by him 
faithfully for the good of his fellows. 

He was exceedingly generous and charitable, as large 
gifts to benevolent, literary, and religious associations and 
institutions testify, and he indulged in an immense amount 
of that giving of which the left hand knows nothing of 
what the right hand is doing. It is known in Kalamazoo 
that on Christmas and on Thanksgiving days no table of 
the poor man was left without a supply equal to that on his 
own, and that he did it. 

In this charitable career he fortunately always had the 
sympathy and the loving cooperation of his wife, who, 
while it niav be was more impulsive than he, was equally 
generous. 

I have said that Mr. Stockbridge' s early education was 
limited, but he inherited an intense love for books, was a 
constant student even when business cares almost over- 
whelmed him, was familiar with the current literature and 
well read in the classics. He had one of the finest and 
best selected private libraries I have ever seen of books — 
not ornaments, not furniture, but familiar friends. He 
was fond of art, and lavishly expended his money for 
choice pictures, fine statuary, and rare bric-a-brac. So it 
happened that in the latter years of his life neither in 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 17 

conversation nor in public speech nor in letters could one 
discover the school deprivations of his boyhood. 

He was ambitious. Why not? If all men were con- 
tent, what would this world be? He had acquired wealth; 
he had leisure; he knew that he had the confidence and 
esteem of his fellow-citizens; he knew equally well that 
he could render his country and State valuable service, so 
sought, not unduly, not improperly, public position. His 
people were ever ready to gratify him. He served in both 
houses of his State legislature, and then twice they elected 
him to the highest office in their gift, that of United States 
Senator. 

As a Senator we can all bear witness to his fidelity, to 
his constant attention to the duties of the great office. 
On committee his services were regarded as invaluable on 
account of his large experience iu affairs, his careful atten- 
tion to whatever was committed to him, and his untiring 
energy. He seldom indulged in debate, but when he did 
he attracted attention by the dignity and the courtesy of 
his bearing, by the closeness of his logic, by the clearness 
of his statements. 

He was princely in his hospitalities. He had an elegant 
home in Kalamazoo, surrounded by beautiful and exten- 
sive grounds, and the doors were always wide open. I 
have had the pleasure to be his guest, and the moment I 
entered the house found myself invested with, everything 
that heart could desire — horses and carriages and servants, 
and everything that money could buy were mine. Mrs. 
Stockbridge was a charming hostess, and seemed to take 
more pleasure in the bestowing than even the guest did in 
the receiving. 

S Mis 152 2 



i8 Address of Mr. Fjye of Maine. 

Mr. Stockbridge was a man of strong convictions and 
fixed principles, to some seeming almost stern and Puri- 
tanic in his fidelity to them. His stand on temperance 
may illustrate this. He was a total abstainer from intoxi- 
cants and never would allow even wine in his house. Here 
in Washington he kept open house, as he did at home, 
and was lavish in his hospitality. He was giving frequent 
dinner parties, and I presume every Senator in mv hear- 
ing has been his guest. His table was always splendidly 
equipped, furnished with everything to tempt the appe- 
tite and delight the taste, but never any wine. I have no 
hesitation in saying that no Senator here, whatever his 
own private tastes and wishes might be, left that hospitable 
table without a new and a profounder respect for the Sena- 
tor who dared disregard the requirements of custom and of 
fashion in devotion to principle. 

Mr. President, Mr. Stockbridge was in every respect 
a strong man, a warm friend, a good neighbor, a patriotic 
citizen, a devoted husband; and he was more and better 
than all these — he was an earnest, faithful Christian, a 
member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, active in all 
of its charities, faithful to all of its obligations. 

It is well with him. He has only passed through the 
open door of his Father's house, and has entered now upon 
life eternal, with all its wealth of possibilities. 



Life and ( hatacter of Francis Browne Stockbndge. 19 



ADDRESS OF MR. JONES OF ARKANSAS. 

Mr. President: Mr. Stockbridge and I were warm 
.personal friends, and when the sad intelligence came to us 
that he was no more I felt that I had sustained a personal 
loss which could never be repaired, for at my time of life 
one does not easily make new friendships. 

During the whole of Mr. Stockkriuck's service in this 
body I believe it was my fortune to be associated with him 
on the Committee on Indian Affairs. In the discharge of 
the duties devolving on us in that committee we were often 
associated together on subcommittees in the investigation 
of questions referred to us. In this way I came to know 
him intimately and to learn his great worth and merit, and 
I hazard nothing in saying that no man of correct feelings 
could know him well and not be his friend. 

One of the most striking traits in his character was 
his fine, well-balanced, sound judgment. Never swayed 
by passion or prejudice, he held always a just balance 
in weighing the merits and demerits of any question; and 
when lie had the opportunity for a full investigation of any 
matter his judgment upon it would command the respect 
of all who knew him. 

This qualitv was manifest in everything connected with 
him. His marked personal success in every walk of life in 
which he entered, the high position he held among those 
with whom he was associated in business and politics in 
his own State and here all bore evidence of it. 

Perhaps his most lovable trait, that which attached his 
friends to him most warmly, was his own generous feelings 



20 Address of Mr. Jones of Arkansas. 

and his broad charity. He judged no one harshly, never 
attributed unworthy motives to others, and never suspected 
others of sinister purposes, but always put that construc- 
tion upon the conduct of others which most accorded with 
his own high standard of proper conduct. 

While he was distinguished for his modesty he was at 
the same time possessed of great force of character, exhib- 
iting in himself such a happy blending of modest worth 
and self-reliant manliness as forms the finest type of our 
Western manhood. 

Of the antagonisms which rude self-assertion is always 
sure to arouse he knew absolutely nothing. His courteous . 
bearing toward and gentle regard for the rights and feel- 
ings of others never for a moment forsook him, and carried 
the conviction to all who came in contact with him that he 
was in the finest sense of the word a gentleman. 

I knew him in his home, and it was there that he ap- 
peared to the best advantage and in the most favorable 
light. No one who ever came within the circle of the 
personal friends and congenial spirits drawn together by 
his discriminating friendship could forget the charm of his 
hospitable home, and I am sure that no one ever went out 
from under his roof without feeling that his was a home 
of unusual loveliness, the crowning glory of which was 
the beautiful life of the husband and wife who made it 
what it was. 

Mr. President, until the last man who knew and served 
with Mr. Stockbridge shall have passed out from this 
body he will not be forgotten here. Xo seat will again 
be marked as his; his name will not again appear upon 
our official rolls; but his memory will linger like a sweet 
incense here where his presence brought only pleasure. 



Life and L haracter oj Francis Browne Stock-bridge 21 



Address of Mr. Cullom. 

Mr. President: I atn sure that the Commonwealth of 

Illinois, which I have the honor in part to represent in 
this Senate, would not have me remain silent on this sad 
occasion. 

Mr. President, as has been said by the distinguished 
Senator from Michigan [Mr. McMillan], the colleague of 
the late Senator Stockbridgk, whom we mourn, the de- 
ceased had entered upon his second term of service in the 
Senate, and to those of us who only knew him as we ordi- 
narily know each other here there seemed main- years of 
usefulness before him. 

Mr. Stockisridge, when he determined to leave Boston 
to find a new home, located for a time in Chicago. He 
was soon attracted, however, by business ventures, into the 
State of Michigan, where he made his permanent home, his 
fortune, and his fame. 

His life was a career of honor and great usefulness in 
that Commonwealth, and he endeared himself to all the 
people. In the Senate he won the esteem of all and the 
affection of those here who most associated with him and 
knew him best. He was a man of strong sense, always 
cpiickly discerning the right, never swerving from it, and 
was a most excellent and conscientious legislator. He per- 
formed his duty under all circumstances, and met the high- 
est expectations of the people on all occasions. Few men 
in the Senate have more completely won the confidence 
and esteem of the members of this body than did Senator 
Stockbridge. 



22 Address of Mr. Ciillom of Illinois. 

He was a good man in the quiet walks of life, as he 
was a faithful servant of the people in his public career. 
He was a man of business. He not only responded to the 
calls of his people to perform public duty, but he con- 
ducted large business operations as farmer, stock raiser, 
and land and lumber trader. He not only sought as a 
legislator to build up and sustain the policy which he 
believed to be for the best interests of the great body of the 
American people, but he sought also to develop by business 
enterprises the resources and wealth of this country. 

Mr. President, men are in a large degree what they 
make themselves. I recognize the fact that geniuses and 
poets are born, not made; but after all, the man who starts 
out with the determination that he will be a man among 
men, that he will carve out his own fortune, that he will 
make the world better for his living in it, and labors to 
that end, is the best type of manhood and leaves behind 
him more to be gratefully remembered by the people. 

Mr. Stockbridge made no pretensions to genius or to 
oratorv, but he was an honest man with more than ordi- 
nary ability, and was always for the right. During all his 
manhood life, private and public, the people with whom 
he lived and whom he served appreciated and trusted him. 

Mr. President, it was my good fortune to become some- 
what intimately acquainted with the deceased after he 
entered this Chamber, and the longer I knew him and 
the more closely I became associated with him the more 
highly I regarded him. He had no concealments, but was 
direct and single-minded, always resting upon the truth. 

He was a patriotic man; he loved our free institutions; 
he loved liberty, and was proud of the glory of our country 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stock-bridge. 23 

and its position among the .nations. He was a Repub- 
lican and believed in the principles and policies of the 
party, but he was never offensive in presenting his views 
in the presence of men who did not agree with him. 

Mr. President, he is gone, and his place has been filled 
in this body. The same experience must come to us all. 
I well remember his stalwart form and his vigorous bear- 
ing when he first entered the Senate; and I also sadly 
remember the many strong men who have been Senators 
upon this floor during the twelve years of my membership, 
and have, like him, surrendered to the great destroyer. 
Humanity is forever subject to the great law of change. 
From birth to our final breath we pass constantly on and 
on, never halting till the silent shore is reached. Senators 
may ordain, and the people may obey their ordinances, but 
death shows no favors to the tribunes. 

The departed Senator began his business career in the 
great metropolis of my State, Chicago, and he laid down 
his life in that city, surrounded in his last hours by his 
relatives and friends. I accompanied his remains to their 
last resting place in the city of his home, where many 
thousands of his neighbors and friends, with saddened 
hearts, lollowed all that was left of Fra.nxts B. Stock- 
bridge to the grave. 

I pay my last tribute of respect to his memory. Peace 
be to his ashes. 



24 Address of Mr. Burrows of Michigan. 



ADDRESS OF MR. BURROWS, 

Mr. President: While I can not hope to add anything; 
to the just meed of praise bestowed upon the life and char- 
acter of the late Senator Stockbridge, yet I should do vio- 
lence to my own feelings and sense of duty to permit the 
occasion to pass without expressing and placing on record 
my high appreciation of his character as a man and his 
worth as a citizen. Knowing him as I did in private life, 
and of his many admirable qualities, I am not surprised 
that Senators who were associated with him in this body- 
even for a brief period should be able to bear testimonv 
to his personal worth, and his fidelity, integrity, and rare 
good judgment in the discharge of public duties, and his 
unswerving devotion to the interests of his State and the 
country. 

These encomiums by his colleagues will be exceedingly 
gratifying to the people of Michigan, who twice honored 
him with a seat in the Senate and who to-day hold his 
memory in the highest regard and deeply deplore that 
his life could not have been spared to the full completion 
of the term to which their partiality had called him. In 
forming an estimate of his character your judgment, of 
necessity, is based almost entirely upon your association 
with him in his official capacity as a member of the Sen- 
ate. But there was another side to his nature none the 
less attractive and praiseworthy. 

He was known to you as a Senator. I knew him as a 
neighbor and friend, with whom it was my good fortune, 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 25 

during the last twenty years of his life, to be in almost 
dail) intercourse, thus affording an opportunity of discern- 
ing those admirable qualities of head and heart which 
attached him to his friends and secured for him an endur- 
ing place in the affectionate regard of his fellow-citizens. 
During this period of nearly a quarter of a century we 
were residents of the same city and much of the time of 
the same ward, and were naturally thrown together in 
social intercourse, freed from the restraints of public life 
which sometimes obscure for the moment the dominating 
characteristics of the human heart. It was under such 
circumstances and amid such surroundings 1 came to know 
Senator Stockbridge, and became attached to him as a 
neighbor and friend. 

In looking back on the years of that acquaintance and 
summing up its incidents, if called upon to single out 
the chief and controlling elements of his character, those 
which molded and dominated his whole life and made it a 
marvelous success, I should have no hesitancy in declaring 
they were his wonderful self-reliance and superb courage. 
He had confidence in his own judgment and the courage 
to execute what his judgment approved. This was exem- 
plified in early life. Born at Bath, Me., in 1S26, in 1842, 
when but sixteen years of age, he determined to take upon 
himself, in a measure at least, the duties and responsibili- 
ties of life, and to that end made his first venture as a 
clerk in a mercantile establishment in the city of Boston, 
where for a period of five years he devoted himself to the 
duties of his position, acquiring his first practical lessons 
in business affairs and developing those qualities of integ- 
ritv and self-reliance which marked the whole course of 



26 Address of Mr. Burrows of Michigan. 

his future life. It was during this experimental period, 
undoubtedly, that he became conscious of his natural bent 
of mind and aptitude for business pursuits, and having 
made the discovery, without attempting to force his life 
into unnatural channels, so frequently attempted and so 
frequently disastrous, he had the rare good judgment to 
enter the open way pointed out by his inclinations and 
dedicated his life to an active business career. 

Having thus determined his course, he entered upon it 
with the ardor and enthusiasm of youth and pursued it with 
unflagging energy to the end, permitting no obstacle, how- 
ever formidable, to impede his progress or turn him aside 
from the consummation of his supreme purpose. 

His resolution formed, it only remained for him to deter- 
mine the character of his business and the field of his 
operations. With that sagacity and foresight for which 
he was noted, he saw in the forests of the Northwest the 
possibility of a great business future, and accordingly in 
1847, at the age of twenty-one, he took up his residence as 
a lumber merchant in the city of Chicago, a place then of 
less than 10,000 inhabitants, where he laid the foundations 
of his future success. From a lumber merchant he became 
a lumber manufacturer, and pushing his way into the 
forests of Michigan and the Northwest, erecting mills and 
establishing camps, he moved forward in the course of his 
destiny nntil he was recognized as among the foremost 
business men of the Northwest. 

In 1853 he became a citizen of Michigan and retained 
his residence in the State during the remainder of his life. 
Here he enlarged his business, became connected with 
other and important industrial enterprises until, at the 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 27 

time of his death, his business interests, varied and com- 
plicated, extended beyond the limits of the State from the 
extreme South to the distant forests of the Pacific Slope. 
This great business success was due in a large measure, if 
not chiefly, to those characteristics of which I spoke in 
the beginning, and which he possessed in a preeminent 
degree — self-reliance and courage. These were the weap- 
ons with which, single-handed and alone, he made his way 
in the industrial world. 

But this tribute would be incomplete without mention- 
ing another phase of his character, as pronounced as those 
to which I have already referred, namely, his kindness and 
boundless generosity. His liberality knew no bounds but 
the measure of his ability, and his charity no restraint but 
the limit of its necessities. It was this that greatly en- 
deared him to his people. Reserved, yet companionable; 
dignified, yet without ostentation,' he freely mingled with 
all the people in their everyday life, acquainting himself 
with their conditions and ministering to their necessities. 
Possessed of an abundant fortune, which sometimes dries 
up the "milk of human kindness," he bestowed private 
charity with a lavish hand, while his donations to public 
objects were on the broadest scale of liberality. Church 
and school, benevolent and charitable institutions alike 
were the recipients of his favor. The city of his home is 
to-day adorned with enduring monuments to his public 
benefactions. 

But while engaged in large business enterprises, demand- 
ing his chief thought and attention, he was not so wholly 
engrossed by these as to be entirely indifferent to passing 
political events. In these he took a lively interest, and 



28 Address of Mr. Burrows of Michigan. 

early identifying himself with the Republican party, he 
became an active and influential member of that organiza- 
tion, adhering to its varying fortunes with characteristic 
steadfastness. Here, as in the business world, he quickly 
secured the confidence of the people and was twice elected 
to the State legislature, serving first in the house and sub- 
sequently in the senate, where, in the discharge of his 
legislative duties, he displayed the same rare good judg- 
ment which had always characterized his business life. 
Though a man of practical affairs, yet in his capacity as a 
legislator he rendered great service to his party and the 
State; and after all, the highest statesmanship is only the 
application of sound business principles to govermental 
affairs. 

That business knowledge he possessed in a remarkable 
degree, and it must have advantaged him and the Senate 
while here in the transaction of the public duties incident 
to this Chamber. His death is a loss to the Senate, the 
State, and the country. 

It is a consolation, however, to know that though his 
life fell short of the allotted span, yet it was full of good 
deeds worthy of remembrance and emulation. 

In his unexpected death we have a fresh reminder of the 
brevity and uncertainty of this earthly existence. 

I can not refrain from one single reflection. Nothing 
has ever so impressed me with the transitory character of 
human life as the contemplation of the changes wrought 
in the personnel of the National Congress within the brief 
period since I first became a member of the House of Rep- 
resentatives in 1S73. The intervening years have served 
to remove from these Halls most of the participants in the 



Life and c naracter of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 29 

legislative duties of twenty-two years ago. Out of a mem- 
bership in the House at that time of something over 300, 
the names of only five of that number are borne on its roll 
of present membership. 

Call to-day in this Chamber the names of the Senators 
which constituted the members of the Senate in 1873, and 
only eight out of the seventy-two would make response. 
Some have passed to other spheres of human action, while 
main- sleep with the fathers. How rapidly the scenes 
change! How startling the transformations! The actors 
of to-dav sleep in the graves of to-morrow, while the 
drama moves on with unabated interest. When contem- 
plating these things we call to mind the words of one who, 
standing in a gallery whose walls were hung with the 
portraits of departed generations, exclaimed, "These are 
the realities, we the shadows!" 

Mr. President, as a further mark of respect to the 
memory of the deceased, I move that the Senate do now 
adjourn. 

The motion was unanimously agreed to; and the Sen- 
ate adjourned until Monday, February n, 1895, at 12 
o'clock in. 



Proceedings in the House. 

May i. 1894. 

Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. E. B. Bagby, as follows: 

Almighty God, the author of life, the source of all wis- 
dom, the bountiful giver of every good, we thank Thee 
for the provisions of Thy providence and grace. Above 
all else we thank Thee for Jesus our Saviour, and we thank 
Thee for His life, so full of tender sympathy for all who are 
bereaved. We thank Thee for His death, that through the 
merits of that death w^e have the hope of an everlasting 
life, and we thank Thee for His resurrection, that it is a 
guaranty to us that if we put our trust in Him we too shall 
be raised. 

O Lord, we come to Thee in the name of this Saviour, 
and ask Thy tender consolation upon the stricken family 
of Thy distinguished servant the Senator from Michigan. 
O Lord, may Thy peace be with them, and as they stand 
by the grave may they feel the presence of Jesus near, and 
may they hear Him as He says, "I am the resurrection 
and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live again, and he that liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die." 

O Lord, solemnize the hearts of all Thy servants; may 
they hear the warning cry, "Be ye also ready!" Prepare 



32 Proceedings in the House. 

us for living, prepare us for dying, and save us by Thy 

grace, through Christ. Amen. 

***** 

MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE. 

A message from the Senate, by Mr. Cox, its Seeretarv, 
informed the House that the Senate had adopted the fol- 
lowing resolutions: 

Resolved, That the Senate lias heard with great sorrow the announcement of 
the death of the Hon. Francis B. Stockbridge, late a Senator from the State 
of Michigan. 

Resolved, That a committee of seven Senators be appointed by the Vice-Presi- 
dent to join such committee as may be appointed by the House of Representa- 
tives to attend the funeral at Kalamazoo, Mich., and that the necessary expenses 
attending the execution of this order be paid out of the contingent fund of the 
Senate. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to the House of 
Representatives. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memorv of deceased the 
Senate do now adjourn. 

The Speaker. The resolutions will be read. 

The Clerk read the resolutions. 

Mr. Burrows. Mr. Speaker, the message just received 
from the Senate of the United States, announcing the 
death of the senior Senator from the State of Michigan, 
Hon. Francis B. Stockbridge, is as painful as it is 
startling. Only a short time since the Senator left the 
capital in anticipation of a delightful journey across the 
continent, contemplating an early return to his public 
duties in the Senate, to which he was devotedly attached. 
But before these hopes could be realized, he was stricken 
down in the city of Chicago, within a short distance of 
his own home (to which he was not permitted to return), 
and expired in that city yesterday evening. 



Proceedings in the Hous, . 33 

In his death the Senate has lost an intelligent and pains- 
taking legislator, the State a wise and safe counselor, and 
his neighbors the truest of friends. The State of Michigan 
has received a blow from which it can not readily recover; 
and the sad event will be attended with every manifesta- 
tion of public and private grief within her borders. 

Coming from the humblest walks of life, he never lost 
touch with the common people, and won his place in busi- 
ness and political life by dint of persistent effort and un- 
faltering courage. Possessing in the later years of his life 
an abundant fortune, yet he was prodigal in his private 
charities; and the city of his home is adorned to-day with 
enduring monuments of his benefactions. 

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to suspend its usual busi- 
ness, and join the .Senate in paying tribute to the memory 
of the deceased by adopting the resolutions which I send 
to the desk. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved. That the House has heard with profound sorrow the announcement 
from the Senate of the death of Hon. Francis B. Sto KBRIDGE, late a Senator 
from the State of Michigan. 

Resolved, That the Speaker of the House appoint a committee of nine members 
of the House, to act in conjunction with the committee appointed by the Senate, 
to make all necessary arrangements for and accompany the remains to the place 
of burial. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of the House notify the Senate of the action of the 
House in this regard. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased the 
House do now adjourn. 

The resolutions were unanimously adopted. 

The Speaker announced the appointment of the follow- 
ing-named members as the committee on the part of the 
House under the resolutions just adopted: Mr. Burrows, 
Mr. Bynum, Mr. McCreary of Kentucky, Mr. Boutelle, 

S Mis 152 3 



34 Proceedings in the House. 

Mr. Payne, Mr. Aitken, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Linton, and 
Mr. Richardson of Michigan. 

And then, in pursuance of the resolutions just adopted, 
the House adjourned. 

February 4, 1895. 
Mr. Thomas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for 
the consideration of a resolution I send to the desk. 
The resolution was read, as follows: 

Resolved, That Thursday, the 2 1st day of February, beginning at 3.30 o'clock 
p. m., be set apart for eulogies on the life and services of the late Franxis 
Browne Stockbridge, late a Senator from the State of Michigan. 

There being no objection, the resolution was agreed to. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 

February 21, ICS95. 

The Speaker. The Clerk will report the special order. 
The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That Thursday, the 21st day of February, beginning at 3.30 o'clock 

p. in., be set apart for eulogies on the life and services of the late Fr IN< IS 
Browne StOCKBRIDGE, late a Senator from the State of Michigan. 

The Speaker. The Clerk will report the resolutions of 
the Senate. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

In the Senate, February 9, rSgj. 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death of 
Hon. FRANCIS B. STOCKBRIDGE, late a Senator from the State of Michigan. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased the busi- 
ness of the Senate be now suspended to enable his associates to payproper tribute 
to his high character and distinguished public services. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to the House of 
Representatives. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased 
the Senate do now adjourn. 

Mr. Thomas. Mr. Speaker, I offer the resolutions which 
I send to the desk. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House has received with sincere regret the announcement 
of the death of the Hon. Franc i^ B. STOCKBRIDGE, late a member of the Senate 
from the State of Michigan, and tenders to the family of the deceased the assur- 
ance of their sympathy with them in the bereavement they have been called upon 
to sustain. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the deceased, and in recognition 
of his eminent abilities as a public servant, the House, at the conclusion of the>e 
memorial proceedings, shall stand adjourned. 

Resolved, That the Clerk be directed to transmit to the family of Mr. Stock- 
BRIDG1 a certified copy of the foregoing resolutions. 



36 Address of Mr. Thomas of Michigan. 



Address of Mr. Thomas. 

Mr. Speaker: From the eastern shore of Lake Michi- 
gan and the scenes of his life work I bring my humble 
tribute of affectionate regard and lay it upon the grave of 
Francis B. Stockbridge. 

Born in obscurity on the rocky coast of New England; 
apprenticed to business in Boston; achieving fortune and 
fame in the great Northwest, and dying in the fullness of 
years, honored alike by the great and the lowly — these are 
the graphic outlines of his illustrious career. 

When he came to my State in 185 1, an adventurous 
youth of twenty-five, the resources of the Commonwealth 
of Michigan were comparatively unknown. Her primeval 
forests were then unsubdued. Beneath the site of the In- 
dian wigwam lay vast deposits of unknown mineral wealth. 
Here it was, with a prescience worthy of maturer years, 
young Stockbridge cast his lot with that select body of 
men whose enterprise was destined in a few short years to 
transform Michigan into homes of comfort and cities of 
wealth. 

The same sagacity that guided his business affairs char- 
acterized his political career. 

Notwithstanding the presence of two distinct civiliza- 
tions, apparently irreconcilable, he saw with a prophetic 
vision the inseparability of civil liberty and Federal union. 

Through the darkest clays of the rebellion Governor 
Blair had no truer friend or safer counselor than Colonel 
Stockbridge. 






Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 37 

When peace returned to our distracted country and great 
economic questions confronted our nation he brought with 
him to the United States Senate and to the solution of 
governmental problems the lessons of patriotism and the 
practical experience of business. 

The curiosities of a new political economy never be- 
wildered his judgment or entangled his feet. The truths 
of finance and of revenue wrought out in the white heat of 
the American Revolution and demonstrated during a cen- 
tury of national life were never abandoned by him. 

In the Republican and Democratic parties he saw the 
embodiment of a natural and historical issue. Within one 
or the other of these parties he believed all the needed re- 
forms could be accomplished. The disintegration of either 
by collateral issues he believed would result in the ascend- 
ency of the other. Hence, he welcomed to Republican 
councils Prohibitionists and Populists and all who had a 
cause or a grievance. 

I first met Colonel Stockbridge in 1871 at the conven- 
tion which nominated him for the State senate. He was 
then a strong man of forty-five, of commanding presence 
and affable demeanor. His fine head was crowned with 
dark hair, and his full beard was untouched by age. His 
kindlv face had no trace of severity, save those lines of 
thought which constant business habit had been register- 
ing there since his sixteenth year. 

His largest title at that time was that of "The Sauga- 
tuck Lumberman. ' ' He had already served in the lower 
house at Lansing, and a man of his nature could not fail 
to appreciate the generous expression of confidence con- 
tained in his promotion to the State senate. 



38 Address of Mr. Thomas of Michigan. 

It is customary on occasions like this to speak of the 
early life of the illustrious dead. To be well born in- 
volves three factors, namely, lineage, locality, and liberty. 
Organic quality must be inherited, environment must favor 
development, and freedom to act attend upon opportunity. 

The name of Stockbridge proclaims an English ances- 
try. To be descended from a race which has maintained 
the supremacy of one flag on all the seas during the most 
momentous centuries of human history is no mean honor 
and itself an earnest of inherited worth. 

Of the locality of his birth I can not speak in detail, as 
I have never seen the storm-swept hills of Maine; but this 
I know, that great men have been nursed beneath her 
wintry skies. Their names are illustrious in our country's 
history. One was the second officer in rank in the Repub- 
lic and the Presiding Officer of the Senate during all the 
years of civil war. One was a distinguished Secretary of 
State, whose fame as a parliamentarian and statesman out- 
ranked in honor the Executive himself. Another is the 
present distinguished Chief Justice of the United States; 
and on the decisive field of Gettysburg, at a spot where the 
combat was fiercest, I read an inscription to the soldiers of 
Maine who fell in the defense of their country's flag. 

Francis B. Stockbridge was born at Bath, in the 
State of Maine, April 9, 1826, and died suddenly and pain- 
lessly at Chicago, 111., April 30, 1894, while on his way to 
California with his wife. 

His father was a physician in ordinary circumstances. 
He was nurtured in a home of comfort, education, and re- 
finement until his sixteenth year, when, in 1842, he went 
to Boston and began his business career as a commercial 



Life and I 'haracter of Francis Brown, Stockbridge. 39 

clerk. In 1S47 ne removed to Chicago and connected him- 
self with the lumber business, and, becoming interested 
in Michigan pine lands, in 1851 he removed to Allegan 
County. 

Here he wooed and won his faithful wife, Miss Betsy 
Arnold, of Gun Plain. In 1S74 I was elected to the seat 
formerly occupied by him in the State senate, and from 
that time to the time of his death I knew him well, and 
he was closely identified with my county, my State, and 
my political party. 

Colonel Stockbridge possessed the qualifications of 
leadership. His knowledge of men was intuitive and his 
charitv for their failings unbounded. In his upward prog- 
ress to fame and fortune he was never weighted with 
malice npr disabled by envy nor corroded by jealousy. 
His faith in men and in the possibilities of the future 
enveloped his life in the sunshine of hope and guided him 
to certain success. 

It is often the case chat men render favors from selfish 
motives and hope to receive personal advantages as a result 
of their benefactions. These men pass by opportunities to 
show unselfish "humanity to man." 

Senator Stockbridge was often known to show his lib- 
eralitv, which came from the kindness of his heart, with- 
out the remotest expectation of praise or personal gain, 
and this virtue must have made him many friends. 

During the campaign that preceded his last election to 
the United States Senate the contest for nominating mem- 
bers of the legislature was in some localities very active 
between the friends of Mr. Stockbridge and his oppo- 
nents. In one locality the opposition united upon a man 



4-0 Address of Mr. Thomas of Michigan. 

who was very popular and influential in his locality, and 
his friends also thought this a proper time to give him the 
honor of a seat in the councils of the State, and they so 
conducted the campaign in his interest that his nomina- 
tion was conceded. But, to the surprise of all, when the 
roll was called at the convention, his nearest friends voted 
for his opponent, and thereby gave him the nomination. 
When asked afterwards why his personal friends had 
deserted him, he replied: 

' ' Many years ago, when I was a poor boy, I walked into 
Saugatuck as good as barefooted and wore only an excuse 
for clothing. I met Mr. Stockbridge and talked with 
him about the prospects for work. He informed me that 
he had nothing for me to do. 'But,' said he, 'come with 
me to the store. ' I did so, and he directed that I be sup- 
plied with everything necessary for my personal comfort. 
I accepted his generosity; and although since then I have 
been abundantly able to pay him, as you know, yet the 
spirit with which he supplied my necessities forbade my 
offering him a moneyed consideration. I have not seen 
Mr. Stockbridge in many years, but if I had been nomi- 
nated and elected you would have expected me to have 
voted against him. This I could not have done, so I 
asked my personal friends to vote for the other man." 
Thus, the unselfish consideration given to that poor boy 
gave to the benefactor a vote for the United States 
Senatorship. 

As society is now constituted the accumulator of wealth 
must be a leader of men. There was a time when lead- 
ership meant power; to-day it means justice; for such 
leadership the workmen of America are yearning. 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 41 

The revolt of society is not against authority but against 
avarice. . Of all the virtues that promote the well-being of 
man I would assign to justice the first rank. Industry, 
temperance, fortitude, and benevolence are grand virtues, 
but they are often self-relative and expend their force on a 
narrow field. What the world is perishing for is justice, 
not charity. If one-half of the millions that are wasted in 
organized Christian charity were expended to promote the 
plain pagan virtue of justice between man and man the 
daybreak of the millennium would fleck the eastern skies. 

Daniel Webster it was who said: 

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which 
holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple 
stand-, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation for general security, 
general happiness, and the improvement and progress of our race. 

Speaking of justice, Sydney Smith said: 

Truth is its handmaid, freedom its child, peace its companion, safety walks in 
its steps, victory follows in its train. It is the highest emanation from the Gos- 
pel; it is the attribute of God. 
Above all things is justice- 
Said David Dudley Field- 
Success is a good thing, wealth is good also, honor is better, but justice excels 
them all. 

Such were the ethics of Senator Stockbridge. And 
whether you visit his mines in the upper peninsula of 
Michigan or his lumber yards in the lower; whether vou 
inspect the plant of the Red Wood Company of Califor- 
nia, or the Spring and Axle Works of Kalamazoo, or his 
famous stock farm in western Michigan, everywhere and 
always the secret of his leadership was the recognition of 
the rights of those he led. And as a tribute to his mem- 
ory I would carve upon his monument these words: "He 



42 Address of Mr. Tlwmas of Michigan. 

believed in the equal rights of all and in rendering to each 
his own." 

That was indeed a sorrowful day when Michigan paid its 
last tribute of love to the faithful son she had delighted to 
honor. Very few, if any, of the great cities of the State 
were unrepresented. Around his casket gathered alike the 
rich and the poor, the titled and the lowly; all social, 
political, and religious distinctions vanished beside the 
grave of one who was broad enough to be a patriot with- 
out partisanship, a capitalist without ostentation, and a 
Christian without sectarianism. Death has of late been a 
frequent visitor to the Senate Chamber. First, it claimed 
the distinguished Georgian, Senator Colquitt; next, in 
rapid succession, Senator Vance, North Carolina's honored 
son, and before the funeral dirge of Senator Vance had 
died away the announcement went forth that Michiean's 
senior Senator had received his final summons. 

Farewell, most loyal citizen. Farewell, most wise states- 
man. Farewell, devoted husband, esteemed neighbor, and 
faithful friend. Well may we say with Senator McMil- 
lan, "His genial presence and kindly nature are now a 
loved remembrance." 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 43 



Address of Mr. Griffin of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker: It was not my privilege to be personally 
acquainted with the late Senator Stockbridge. His so- 
cial and business relations were largely remote from ray 
home, in the city of Detroit. His political sympathies 
and surroundings, so far as political parties are concerned, 
were entirely different. Though both were members of 
the Fifty-third Congress, I came into it at its second ses- 
sion, and he was called from it when that session was little 
more than half under way. 

It is sufficient, however, to warrant my use of a few 
moments' time that we both came from the same State. 
If more is needed it is to be found in the esteem accorded 
him while living and the respect paid him dead by every 
citizen of Michigan who knew of his honored career. 
Born in the East, he sought the West for his fortune, and 
he was its own architect. Happily for him and happily 
for the State, he found a home in the Commonwealth 
made illustrious by the great statesman whose name is so 
often coupled with the names of Clay, Webster, and Cal- 
houn; a State rich in its waters, its forests, and its mines; 
a State carved out of that immense Northwest Territory 
and inspired by the utterance of the ordinance of 1787, 
"Schools and the means of education are forever to be 
encouraged;" renowned for the intelligence and morality 
of its people, for its common schools and colleges, and for 



44 Address of Mr. Griffin of Michigan. 

its great university, whose light through its teachers and 
scholars illumines and enlightens the civilized world, Occi- 
dent and Orient alike. 

He was quick to discover its natural advantages and its 
superior attractions as a home. It needs no personal ac- 
quaintance with the man to be assured that to be chosen 
from such a State and by such a people to the Senate 
of the United States there must be something in him of 
character and manhood to provoke admiration and win 
approval. If we turn, therefore, to that source of knowl- 
edge which is not infrequently more searching than the 
ofttimes partial judgment of personal association; if we 
turn to the common and united speech of his fellow-citi- 
zens, which goes to make up reputation, we shall find by 
this estimate that the people made no mistake in their 
choice, for he was every whit a man. A member of the 
staff of Michigan's war governor during the second epoch 
in this country that tried men's souls, he cherished no 
bitterness and no sectional hatred_ when the contest was 
over. 

With a full realization that this nation, to be the great- 
est, must be united, and that the glory and grandeur of 
the Republic are to be preserved and perpetuated by the 
unflinching loyalty and undying devotion of every section 
and of all her sons, he longed for harmony and brotherly 
forbearance with peace, for real content and satisfaction 
with outward reconciliation. He was generous in senti- 
ment, considerate in expression, not impatient of honest 
difference of opinion, and ever dominated by the patriotic 
impulse that lingers upon the words of one of America's 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stock-bridge. 45 

most lovable poets — words which seem freighted with a 
divine afflatus: 

Thou, too, sail im, < 1 Ship of State ! 
Sail on, I ) Union, strong and great ! 

* * * * 

( )ur hearts, our hopes, are all with thee; 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayer-, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, are all with thee. 

Nor, Mr. Speaker, was he a novice in legislative experi- 
ence when he entered the Capitol. He had in the very 
prime of manhood been successfully chosen representative 
and senator in the councils of his adopted State. It was 
there undoubtedly that he won his first spurs as a wise 
and safe legislator; there he gained the confidence of his 
associates and the plaudits of the people, riveting their 
attention upon him, until he became the target for kindly 
expression and generous approval, eventually culminating 
in the grateful summons to go up higher. 

He had not been educated for the forum or specially 
equipped for the halls of legislation. He was not learned 
in the scholastic sense of the word, but nature had gifted 
him with a remarkable capacity to divine cause and effect, 
and had endowed him with a sort of correct a priori rea- 
soning. These things stood him in good stead in business 
and public life, and enabled him to accumulate wealth, 
and at the same time hold himself secure in the growing 
love of the people. He was one of those rare men who, 
without early mental discipline in the direction of scholar- 
ship, in the midst of increasing busines cares and responsi- 
bilities, fitted himself to creditably and faithfully serve his 
eountrvmen in the highest station the State can bestow. 



46 Address of Mr. Griffin of Michigan. 

I have alluded to his wealth. His fortune for these 
times was not extremely, but moderately, large. It had 
come to him by earnest and steady effort and by honest 
and wise management, availing himself of the opportuni- 
ties offered in the legitimate avenues of traffic and trade. 
But he was not a man to glory in his riches. He was rich 
in good works and willing to contribute. He held his 
wealth in trust for the good that it could accomplish. He 
was a bountiful giver. Every object of charity and benev- 
olence felt the kindly touch of his generous nature, and 
the benedictions of the poor were always over and upon 
him. In the quaint language of the old preacher, he 
"furred himself warm with poor men's hearts." He had 
scarcely attained the age of three-score years and ten, but 
if we live in deeds, not years, he had reached the full limit 
of four-score. 

Mr. Speaker, I should be untrue to my own instincts, 
and this most imperfect sketch would be most unjustly 
incomplete, if I failed to recall one feature of his life 
which, pervading as it did his entire business and public 
career, is deserving of a most marked recognition. The 
voice of him who spake as man never spake, whose utter- 
ance gave back to the despairing widow of Xain her only 
son, called from the tomb the brother of Mary and Martha, 
restored the ruler's daughter, and on the midnight lake 
even the winds and sea obey, had a potency and charm for 
him that permeated all his ambitions, and, as unerring as 
the Star of Bethlehem, always brought him in sight of the 
will and command of the Master. His religion was not a 
thing of lip service. It was not the seeming, but the real. 
It was not without only, but within also. He left no 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stock-bridge. 47 

wound prints, the marks of gross betrayal, and no deeds 
that reveal the whited sepulchre. 

Humbly at this hour I pay this meager tribute to his 
memory. He lived a life of usefulness, of honorable dis- 
tinction, of worthy example, and bequeathed to those he 
left behind a precious legacy of good works and a record 
of high and lofty achievement. He sleeps the sleep of 
the just. How true it is — 

The last end 
,< if the good man is peace! How calm His exit! 
Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground. 
Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft. 






48 Address of Mr. Grout of J ermont. 



Address of Mr. Grout. 

Mr. Speaker: My acquaintance with Francis Browne 
Stockbridge, late a Senator from the State of Michigan, 
was not intimate, but sufficient to give a distinct impres- 
sion of his manly, sturdy character. 

His neighbors at home and his colleagues in the Senate 
all testify to his singleness of purpose and his straight- 
forwardness; also to his great good sense and his faithful 
perseverance in whatever work he undertook. His judg- 
ment was always excellent, whether on questions of busi- 
ness or of public concern. Though always able to express 
himself clearly and forcibly, he was in no sense an orator. 
In fact, he made no attempt at display in speech, but was 
rather a man of action than of words. 

He had only a common-school education, with perhaps 
a term or so at the academy. He was a native of the State 
of Maine and was sixty-eight years of age at the time of 
his death. He had been eight years in the Senate, having 
been first elected in 1886 and again in 1892. 

The high honor of a seat in the United States Senate 
is matter of recognition by the entire American people. 
And no man can reach that enviable distinction, and es- 
pecially be reelected, except there be that in him worthy 
of high approval in the estimation of the people of his 
State. It seems that Senator Stockbridge had reached 
this commanding position with the people of the great 
State of Michigan, and had become the worthy successor 
in the Senate of such distinguished men as L,ewis Cass, 






Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 49 

Zachariah Chandler, and Jacob M. Howard. Ye;, Senator 
STOCKBRIDGE had made his way to this goal of great 
difficulty and placed his name among these great names in 

the history of his State. And the question I am going to 
ask, if yon will bear with me for a little time while I 
answer it, is, By what means was this grand result reached? 
What was the secret of this great success? 

And first of all, in answering, let me say that this was 
not Senator Stockbridge's first great success. He had 
before that made a great success in business and amassed a 
large fortune, not by speculation, but by a lifetime of in- 
dustry and patient labor. He had also accomplished the 
great success of winning the hearts and the absolute con- 
fidence of all who knew him; the great success of being 
esteemed not only independent and able, but thoroughly 
upright, and always to be relied upon to perforin to the 
utmost verge all that he had promised, and frequently more 
than was expected of him, not only in matters of charity 
but in business as well, And these great successes, possi- 
bly thought by some not very great, but, I repeat, these 
great successes were the stepping-stones by which Senator 
Stockbridge rose in the estimation of the people of Michi- 
gan, till they crowned his reasonable ambition for a seat 
in the United States Senate with success also, thereby hon- 
oring honest worth.and providing themselves with a repre- 
sentative in that body sure to guard well their interests 
and always to uphold their honor. 

Senator Stockbridge had served creditably in both 

branches of the State legislature, and had shown himself 

familiar with public questions, both State and national. 

In his extensive business enterprises he had displayed great 

S Mis 152 4 






50 Address of Mr. Grout of Vermont. 

courage and ability; in fact, here he was a veritable leader 
among men. But that which most of all impressed the 
people with his superiority was the rectitude of his life, 
both public and private, and the nobility and grand indi- 
viduality of his character. He was indeed a fine specimen 
of American manhood, and his noble qualities came partly 
from inheritance and partly from a well-ordered life, into 
which entered but little of frivolity and vanity, and much 
of sober, thoughtful work, not only as the means of success 
for himself but of usefulness to his fellow-man. He was a 
good illustration of the poet's conception that — 

Life is leal! life is earnest ! 

And the grave is not its goal; 
1 lust thou art, to dust returnest, 

Was not spoken of the soul. 

He was in the first place born with that idea. He was of 
good, strong Puritan stock, which is never quite destitute 
of energy and a certain religious flavor which have made 
New England civilization what it is, and not alone New 
England civilization, but largely that of the great West. 

He acquired no extravagant, false notions in the recep- 
tive, formative period of childhood rnd youth, spent as it 
was in the simple, quiet home of his father, a country 
doctor. And if we had a full and particular history of the 
four years, from the age of seventeen to twenty-one, spent 
by young Stockbridge in the wholesale store in Bos- 
ton, we should undoubtedly find him strictly faithful and 
conscientiously diligent in the work of his employer and 
exemplary in all his habits — doubtless standing then, as 
in all after life, on the principle of total abstinence from 
intoxicating drinks, which he did not depart from here at 
the capital, but exemplified, as few have the courage to do, 



Life and ( 'haraclcr of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 51 

by having no wine served at his elegant and sumptuous 
dinner parties. 

Yes; if the curtain could be raised on these four years, 
young Stockbridge would undoubtedly be presented as 
"many a time and oft" politely but firmly declining the 
invitation of friends and acquaintances to partake of the 
flowing bowl. 

It would also disclose the fact that his companionship 
was not with the prodigal young man who "wasted his 
substance in riotous living." He evidently did not invest 
all his current earnings in "wild oats," as was'unques- 
tionably clone by many a gilded and giddy youth of his 
acquaintance, whose life naturally enough in most in- 
stances ended early in failure. 

No; for at the age of twenty-one we find him with some 
cash and much character, and with good habits and good 
health, settled in the lumber business in the then young 
city of Chicago. Here, as at every point in life, he was 
successful. His upright dealing won confidence and 
credit, and his business sagacity and foresight, backed by 
unusual energy of character, soon carried him from his 
lumber yard in Chicago to the sources of supply in the 
pineries of Michigan. 

Here he bought lands and built mills and pushed his 
fortunes till he was accounted a rich man. Villages 
sprang up about him and thousands of men were in his 
employ; all of whom, because of his kindly relations with 
them, had come to look upon him as a sort of foster 
father. 

Of a sudden, however, one of those terrible forest fires 
which have more than once devastated the State of Michi- 
gan overran his lands and swept lumber and mills out of 



eg Address of Mr. Grout of Vermont. 

existence. He was thought to be utterly ruined, but the 
indomitable spirit within him rose equal to the occasion. 

He at once set himself with unabated courage to the 
work of repairing his fortune. His employees stepped for- 
ward to a man with a loan of their savings. They had 
implicit confidence in Mr. Stockbridge, the same as the 
people of Michigan had when they intrusted him with 
their interests in the Senate of the United States. And 
thus seconded by the men in his employ he resumed busi- 
ness, striking out into new fields, and, phcenix-like, out of 
the ashes of his first estate sprung another far greater, but 
which he all the time looked upon as a trust fund for the 
benefit of mankind— for the relief of the orphan world, 
rather than for his own personal use and aggrandizement. 
He always held open hand toward charities, both great 
and small; to which the Kalamazoo College, Academy of 
Music, and Young Men's Christian Association building 
stand as eloquent witnesses; while the church of which he 
was a member leaned upon him as _ upon a pillar for sup- 
port. And the poor, whom we have with us always, and 
whose benevolent steward he felt himself to be, were never 
turned empty away— he seldom, if ever, stopping to inquire 
if, perchance, he might not sometimes be imposed upon. 

Such, in brief, were some of the qualities of the late 
Senator Stockbridge, and is it any wonder that when his 
sudden death was announced the newspapers told us of 
many a moist eye and husky voice in the city where he 
had his home and where everyone felt that he had lost a 
personal friend? 

Any picture of Senator Stockbridge would be incom- 
plete which did not present his benevolent and sympa- 
thetic acts as wholly without ostentation or display, and 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 53 

as well guarded by a dignified and quiet reserve, both of 
manner and speech, which to the stranger seemed to make 
him a little inaccessible; but with the acquaintance and 
the friend the cordiality was complete, while with the 
needy a statement of the case was all that was necessary. 

The picture would also be incomplete if it did not dis- 
close underneath this sober, earnest exterior a vein of 
pleasantry and humor that always relished a joke and had 
a keen sense of the ludicrous; a taste, also, for the beauti- 
ful, both in art and nature, especially for that most beau- 
tiful and noble of animals for the use of man, the horse. 
And so strong was his admiration not only for the beau- 
tiful but for the lively in nature, that lie had one of the 
largest and best establishments for breeding the trotting 
horse in the whole Northwest, in which he took great 
pride and pleasure. Here is, indeed, a bright, brisk spot 
in the otherwise quiet outline of his sedate career. 

But the picture would be still incomplete, sadly incom- 
plete, if it did not bear testimony to those rare qualities 
of head and heart which always saved him from serious 
mistakes and kept him on the right side of all public 
questions. He was wise and patriotic. His judgment was 
clear, strong, and practical. His convictions were always 
a fixed quantity; he was never tossed about bv the uncer- 
tain winds of expediency, and, as the result, his public 
record is one of fidelity to duty and of honor alike to him- 
self, his party, and his State. 

Mr. Speaker, aside from respect for the dead, if there 
be any profit to the American people in the memorial 
exercises held from time to time in the two Houses over 
deceased Senators and Members, it is to be found in the 
lesson for the living, and especially for young men, to be 



54 Address of Aft: Grout of I ermont. 

drawn from the life and career of those who have gone ont 
from amongst ns and are now at rest. 

It seems to me that in the life of this deceased Senator 
may be found a valuable lesson for our American youth. 
Here was a poor boy of humble birth, who won his way to 
a seat in the American Senate, with only limited educa- 
tional advantages, and with none of the gifts or arts of ora- 
tory, which sometimes obscure defects in judgment and are 
frequently accepted as a substitute for sounder qualities, 
but which never fail to dazzle and attract, and are really 
the mediumship of the highest public service; with none 
of the arts, either, of the professional politician, but with a 
life devoted to the stern demands of business, in which 
everything he undertook was thoroughly and conscien- 
tiously done; a life of which each day gave proof of his 
sense of responsibility to his Creator and his fellow-man; a 
life filled with the every-day heroism of the faithful and 
the just; in short, a life worthy of imitation and of com- 
memoration. 

Mr. Speaker, the following verses from Longfellow's 
<l Psalm of Life" were written of such men as the late Sen- 
ator Stockbridge, and are fit to be read in any presence: 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of lime. 

Footprints that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother, 

Seeing shall lake heart again. 
* * * * 

Let us, then, lie up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait. 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 55 



ADDRESS OF MR. DlKGLEY. 

Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact that Senator Stock- 
bridge was a native of the State of Maine and of the dis- 
trict which I have the honor to represent, it is fitting that 
I should unite in the tributes to his memory offered on this 
occasion. 

I do this all the more gladly because the bond of sym- 
pathy which always unites the sons of Maine wherever 
they may have cast their lot was supplemented in the case 
of the departed Senator by the ties of mutual respect and 
confidence. 

Although only seventeen years of age when he left his 
boyhood home in Rath, Me., in 1843, to enter upon the 
struggles and take up the responsibilities of active life in a 
large business establishment in Boston, yet, young as he 
was, he was equipped with endowments inherited from a 
Pilgrim ancestry — that always insure success — industry, 
self-reliance, integrity, pluck, and that practical grasp of 
men and affairs popularly styled "common sense," not 
because it is common, but because it embodies those quali- 
ties which enable the possessor to speak the word or do the 
act which is at ouce recognized by men everywhere as the 
right thing at the right time. 

When, live years later, at the age of twenty-two, young 
Stockbridge went to Chicago, then just entering upon 
that marvelous career possible nowhere else than in the 
great West, and entered into business for himself as a lum- 
ber merchant, he was admirably fitted by the thorough 



^6 Address of Mr. Dingley of Maine. 

training which he had received in business methods, added 
to his natural aptitude for business affairs, to take high 
rank in a city famed for the ability and push of its cap- 
tains of industry and trade. True to the instincts of a son 
of the Pine Tree State, he soon found himself pushing 
his way into the forests of Michigan, the New England 
of the West, to which State he removed in 1S51, and in 
whose development and business and political activities he 
was a tireless and prominent factor till the day of his death. 

When called to positions in public life Senator Stock- 
bridge displayed the same practical qualities in State and 
national affairs that he had shown in his successful busi- 
ness career. On committees, where the work of legisla- 
tion is really effected, his thorough acquaintance with 
business and industrial life made him exceptionally useful. 
Although never trained as a public speaker, his plain, 
businesslike statements on practical questions always com- 
manded attention and carried conviction. The confidence 
which his character inspired gave great weight to his brief 
speeches, strikingly illustrating the truth that it is not so 
much the words uttered as the man behind them which 
gives potency to speech. 

Mr. Stockbridgk's fame rests, however, on his con- 
spicuous success as a business man. He was one of those 
sagacious and enterprising men, endowed with a rare busi- 
ness insight and foresight and capacity to organize and 
execute on a grand scale, who have been instrumental in 
developing the wonderful resources of this country within 
a generation to a degree that surpasses the fabled energies 
of Aladdin's lamp. Under their sagacious leadership and 
marvelous inspiration our broad expanse has been spanned 



Life and ( 'haracter of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 57 

with railways, the valleys and the mountains have been 
made to yield up their treasure, the rivers coursing to tin- 
sea have been laid under contribution, the forests have 
been utilized, and the broad prairies, no longer "tickled 
with the hoe" in the hands of man, but cultivated with 
machinery which works witli human intelligence, have 
"lauehed with harvests" such as the world never before 
saw. The forces of nature have been harnessed by capital 
and made to so cooperate with labor that human energy 
has been multiplied many fold and wealth produced as 
never before — wealth which has been distributed by an 
economic law higher than statutes in increased wages to 
labor, lower cost of products to every human being, and 
a bountiful recompense to those exceptional captains of 
industry whose genius and skill have made possible such 
results. 

It is to me, Mr. Speaker, a peculiarly gratifying trait of 
the well-rounded character of Mr. Stockbridge— a trait, 
indeed, without which no character can be said to be well 
rounded — that he regarded the wealth which had come to 
him by virtue of his rare God-given business capacity not 
as his alone, but in large measure as a trust placed in his 
hands for the benefit of his fellow-men. In that charming 
gem of the many beautiful cities of Michigan in which he 
so long resided, and to which his remains were taken tor 
burial, his benefactions were so numerous that his name 
was a synonym of public spirit and benevolence. 

The sympathy of his nature and the kindliness of his 
heart were manifested in his beaming countenance, his help- 
ful greetings, and his philanthropic deeds. Some men are 
a perpetual benediction as they tread the pathway of life, 



58 Address of Mr. Dingley of Maine. 

and cheer and aid the struggling around them. S :ch was 
Senator Stockbridge. 

While possessed of abundant means to gratify ever)' 
desire, Mr. Stockbridge was unostentatious, modest, and 
simple in his tastes and mode of life. The simplicity, 
sobriety, and rectitude which were a part of his Pilgrim 
inheritance followed him through life, and were as manifest 
in the whirl of business and the gayeties of the national 
capital as when, a boy of seventeen, he left his quiet home 
on the Kennebec, with the benediction of those who had 
watched over him in infancy and boyhood and taught him 
the way of truth. 

He was a type of that grand Pilgrim character — judged 
by its influence and fruitfulness, worthy of eulogy in story 
and song — for which Brewster and Winslow and Standish 
stood, leaders who, though dead, are still striding from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, molding our institutions, framing 
our laws, inspiring our policies, and impressing themselves 
on the West as well as the East, on the Pacific Slope as 
well as on New England. 

Those who are accustomed to denounce New England 
as if her people were of a different type from the people of 
the great West, and to speak of the men of the East as if 
they were in antagonism to the men of the West, forget 
that it was the sons of New England and New York and 
Pennsvlvania, of whom Senator Stockbridge was a type, 
who laid the foundations of Ohio and Michigan and the 
States beyond; and that the bond of kinship and sympathy 
which exists between those who left our hearthstones to 
found a new empire and those who remained behind and 
their descendants can never be broken. 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stock-bridge. 59 

Mr. Speaker, I should fail to give an adequate concep- 
tion of the character of Mr. Stockbridge, and undoubtedly 
of the potent influence which shaped his life, if I should 
lose sight of the fact that he was a Christian man in the 
sense that he was an earnest believer in the great truths of 
Christianity and had a deep and abiding personal faith in 
the Saviour of mankind. It is such a faith which builds 
character that stands like a rock when the hours of trial 
come, and inspires life's weary wayfarer with courage and 
hope. It is such a faith that lifts men above the storms 
and buffetings and disasters of this life and enables them to 
do their duty here nobly, bravely, and grandly by widening 
their vision, deepening their faith in God, and giving them 
root not simply in the transient world that now is, but also 
in the immortal world beyond. 

The great change which with our narrow vision we call 
death, but which to the spiritual vision is only the laying 
aside of the worn and dusty garments of this brief life and 
the putting on of the splendid robes of immortality, must 
come to all. It never comes bidden, whether it appears 
with or without warning. It came to him whose memory 
we honor to-day suddenly, but I doubt not it found him 
prepared. 

It is a consolation to those who mourn that, though he 
has passed through that great change which we call death, 
yet he still lives — lives in the fragrance which his helpful 
life shed; lives in the loving remembrance of those who 
best knew him; lives in that higher, nobler, and better 
unending life of which this is only the preparation and 
threshold. 



60 Address of Mr. Lin/on of Michigan. 



Address of Mr. Linton. 

Mr. Speaker: We have met at this time for the purpose 
of paying a tribute to the memory of a leader, a typical 
American, and an honest man. I, sir, not only had the 
honor of being a member of the legislature which first 
elected Fraistcis B. Stockbridge to the Senate of the 
United States, but it was my lot and privilege also to be a 
member of the caucus which placed him in nomination for 
that high position; and, having been one of his supporters 
therein, I watched his career with the greatest interest, and 
now, during the busy closing scenes of the last session of 
the Fifty-third Congress, it is indeed a sad pleasure for me 
to say kind words of the man whom all Michigan loved. 

He was a great organizer if not a great orator, but at 
times he spoke with much force, while his genial manner 
and kind actions toward all who had the pleasure of his 
companionship won for him admiration and respect. 

He was loved not only by his home people, but by all 
residents of Michigan, and by every American citizen who 
was honored by his acquaintance. 

He was ever vigilant and watchful when the interests of 
his constituents and the Peninsular State were at stake, 
and was diligent and careful when performing any and 
every- duty assigned to him. 

He was a man of good judgment, with firm convic- 
tions, and his counsel and advice were always in demand 
by those who knew him; and now that he has passed to 
tlie great beyond, we here this afternoon exemplify in his 



Life and ( 'haracter of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 61 

honor one of the kind features of political life, when mem- 
bers of all parties join in kindly, courteous tributes to his 
memory. 

His employees knew him to be a friend in time of need; 
honest and intelligent, he was a sale counselor to those hi 
trouble; determined upon doing right, he never faltered 
in the battle of life and his courage never weakened. Xo 
other man assisted more in developing the great resources 
of Michigan. He caused her soil to be cultivated, her live 
stock to be improved, mines to be opened, railroads to be 
built; he caused the enactment of wise laws, and in divers 
other ways helped to make the Wolverine State great, 
wealthy, and strong. He was a man of deeds and not of 
empty words, and his votes in the United States Senate 
and elsewhere were cast for honest convictions and not for 
policy. He was loyal to the party of his choice, but was 
free from offensive partisanship or prejudice toward those 
who differed from his political views. 

It was my privilege to be assigned as a member of the 
House committee which attended Senator STOCKBRIDGE'S 
funeral in the pleasant city of Kalamazoo, chosen years 
ao-o for his life's home. There I saw the lip quiver and 

fc> 

the tear fall upon the faces of neighbors and those who 
were bound by ties of relationship as they looked for the 
last time upon the form about to be laid away upon the 
hilltop in their beautiful cemetery. There were gathered 
men and women who had long known the dead Senator 
during his active life and had been associated with him in 
social, business, and political affairs. I shall never forget 
their sad hearts, sorrowful countenances, and the great 
attendance, showing the high esteem in which he was held 



62 Address of Mr. Linton of Michigan. 

by those whom he had so often joined in enterprises for the 
advancement of his city and State, and also many times 
aided in charitable works, being enabled so to do by his 
wealth, every dollar of which was accumulated in honor- 
able pursuits, and the possession of which never caused 
him to lose that gentleness of manner or the spirit of good 
fellowship for which he was so well known. 

The community in which he lived considered him a 
benefactor in every sense of the word. We all remember 
the warm clasp of his hand and the heartiness of his greet- 
ing. We know that in his public as well as in his pri- 
vate life he evaded no duty and shirked no responsibility. 
Although seldom heard in debate, his judgment in com- 
mittee rooms was considered the best, and there, where our 
work is mostly performed, he often decided the fate of a 
bill or measure under consideration. His record has no 
stain upon its page, as evil doing was never thought of in 
connection with his name; and his life being full of suc- 
cess and exemplifying the possibilities of American citi- 
zenship, it is proper and fitting that we should to-dav pay 
homage to whom homage is due by revering the memory 
and saying kind words of Senator Stockbridge, whose 
name and deeds will be cited as examplars so long as our 
Commonwealth exists. 

He died with his armor on. Commissioned by the peo- 
ple of a great State to sit in the council chamber of the 
world's leading Republic, and with his name still upon 
the roll, he was called beyond the grave, where w T e hope 
at the end of earth's existence the universal congress of 
all nations may assemble for time eternal. 



Life and Character at Francis Browne Stockbridge. 63 



Address of Mr. Gorman. 

Mr. SPEAKER: In deference to a long-established custom 
of paying tribute to a deceased member of either branch 
of Congress, I rise to make a few remarks touching the 
life and official career of the Hon. Francis B. Stock- 
bridge, late a Senator from the State of Michigan. 

I am not given to lauding the services of the living or 
rendering fulsome praise to the dead. I am constrained, 
however, to feel that it is a matter of justice and a com- 
mon expression of feeling of respect to the late Senator 
to call to mind some attributes of strength, success, and 
admiration that attended him through life. Of his birth 
I know nothing other than what is now a matter of history ; 
nor do I know anything of his training other than what 
his neighbors have told; of his public career, when called 
to official dignity and state, I am fairly well conversant. 

Two things have always strongly impressed me with 
a feeling of admiration for Senator Stockbridge. The 
first was that unconquerable disposition that he always 
manifested to succeed in that to which he aspired. The 
second was his absolute and unquestionable loyalty to the 
friends that he made. The first great element of his 
strength is that which commands the respect and admira- 
tion of even - American citizen. Success once attained, 
the beneficiary is justly entitled to the consideration of his 
fellow-men. Coming into the business, social, and polit- 
ical controversies of this life as he did quite fully and 
fairly demonstrates the possibilities that are within the 



64 Address of Mr. Gorman of Michigan. 

reach of the young- men of this country who are not 
upheld and supported by distinguished parentage, wealth, 
or social relations. There could be no more beautiful illus- 
tration of the possibilities of a young man in this country 
than that which Senator Stockbridge has given to the 
people of his adopted State. 

As has been said many times, some are born to honors, 
others have honors thrust upon them. Neither could be 
said of the late Senator; he acquired all that he had, and 
is therefore more to be honored than if they had come from 
any other source. I did not have a very extended per- 
sonal acquaintance with Senator Stockbridge, but from 
what little I saw of him and knew of him I am satisfied 
that he must have had elements of strength in his honesty 
witli his friends, his devotion to his principles, and his 
strict compliance with his promises and obligations in 
every walk of life that made him especially strong with 
those who came in everyday business contact with him. 

I occupied a seat in the upper branch of the Michigan 
legislature when Senator Stockbridge was first elected 
to the honorable position, to which he was subsequently 
reelected, in the United States Senate. I occupied a seat 
on the floor of the house of representatives at Lansing, 
when a very warm friend of mine, Senator Palmer, of Big 
Rapids, presented the name of Franxis B. Stockbridge 
as a candidate for United States Senator in the Republican 
caucus. With the eloquent and oratorical effort for which 
Senator Palmer was especially distinguished, he pictured 
in such glowing terms the life, the business qualifications, 
the capacity, the honesty, the probity, and the worth of 
I\Ir. Stockbridge as an honorable citizen of the State 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 65 

that it made an impression on my mind that I never have, 
and perhaps never will, forget. 

In speaking of the second great qualification for which 
Senator Stockbridge has been especially admired and re- 
spected by his associates and friends, irrespective of party, 
throughout the State, that is, his loyalty to his friends, 
I can not too strongly express my admiration for a man 
who is particularly identified as the one who never for- 
gets his friends. I do not believe that a man ought to 
be blind to the interests or wishes of those who are not 
especially classed as his friends, but I do think that one of 
the strongest elements that any man in public life can 
bring to bear in his own behalf, and in the behalf of his 
partv, is that of faithfulness to those who were faithful to 
him. This may nut be in strict accordance with the doc- 
trine of the New Testament, but it is the most natural to 
human kind, and justified in Holy Writ. To my thinking 
the most beautiful tribute that I could pay to the memory 
of a departed friend would be to say he thought first of 
those who were loyal to him in the hour of need. 

Senator Stockbridge did not believe in the public 
policv of governmental affairs that I do; he believed in 
the advocacy of a policy purely and exclusively American. 
Whether I think he was right or wrong is a matter of little 
concern here; it is enough to say that I believe he was sin- 
cere in the advocacy of his principles. I have great respect 
for any man who advocates a policy, even though I think 
him wrong, if he is sincere in the advocacy of the same. 
That Senator Stockbridge was sincere in everything that 
he did I have no question of doubt, and I do not think 
that others who knew him have; that he was honest in his 

S Mis 152 5 



66 Address of Mr. Gorman of Michigan. 

purposes goes without saying; that he was kind-hearted is 
well known by the many beneficiaries of his liberal purse; 
that he was broad gauged and considerate of the natural 
and religious rights of others is well known and wholly 
appreciated by all the people familiar with his life. He 
was honest, sober, sincere, and liberal in what he did. 

He was a beautiful illustration of the possibilities of 
American citizenship — an unquestioned type of a self- 
made man. 



Jjife and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 67 



ADDRESS OF MR. WEADOCK. 

Mr. Speaker: Having had for main- years only that 
knowledge of Colonel Stockbridge which every citizen 
of Michigan had, having known him as one of the promi- 
nent business men and one of the political leaders of the 
State, my closer knowledge of him began in the Fifty- 
second Congress. Colonel Stockbridge prior to that time 
had illustrated in the highest way one of the most beauti- 
ful aspects of political life in this country; that is, the 
strong and enduring friendship that political contests 
bring, for there are none of us who can fail to remember 
those friends who, at great cost to themselves either of 
time or money, or both, have stood by us and the princi- 
ples which we represented in those contests with that loy- 
alty which inspires a memory lasting as long as life itself. 
This is one of the few compensations which come to those 
who are engaged in public life. 

One incident I wish particularly to speak of. At a cer- 
tain time in the history of Michigan a certain Senator who 
belonged to Senator Stockbridge' s party, and whose term 
was about to expire, was the candidate of a large majority 
of his party for reelection. A revolt was led against that 
choice. Colonel STOCKBRIDGE, then a private citizen, 
stood by this man who was the choice of his party with a 
loyalty, an earnestness, and faithfulness that challenged 
and won the admiration of the people of that State. Fi- 
nancial and other misfortunes had come to this man of 



68 Address of Air. Wcadock of Michigan. 

his choice, but he stood in the breach unflinching, ready 
to fulfill every obligation and every requirement of the 
situation. 

When the nomination for Senator was offered him, if he 
would step aside and abandon his friend, he firmly refused 
to do so, and a new man was elected. He served only one 
term. In his stead there came from the State of Michigan, 
with a very strong public sentiment behind him, created 
by the steadfastness and loyalty he had shown to his friend, 
the man whose memory we are commemorating to-day, 
Francis B. Stockbridge. 

In the Senate, and throughout his career, Colonel Stock- 
bridge was always plain, modest, unassuming, loyal, and 
friendly. He belonged to that class of lumbermen that 
in Michigan, using the colloquialism of the camps, we call 
the "State of Mainers." They are among the most suc- 
cessful lumbermen of the State; and it was in that line of 
business that his great success was achieved prior to his 
coming to the Senate. 

Of his career in Washington the gentlemen who have 
preceded me have perhaps sufficiently spoken. Never at 
any time nor at any place did he fail to remember the 
slightest wish of any citizen of his State or fail to respond 
to it in the fullest measure. Without pretension to great 
learning, his library was one of the choicest in the State, 
and he was a man of wide information. He had studied 
nature in her great forests; he had studied men in the 
great arenas of business and public life. And education 
is not so much that which we are taught as that which 
we know. With such an education as that our departed 
friend was exceedingly well equipped. 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 69 

Those who see their friends taken from them wonder 
often that the busy hum of life goes on without any 
change; that the birds still sing, and the sun shines, and 
the world follows its usual avocations, when everything 
seems so dark before them. So on these occasions of eulo- 
gies upon our departed brethren, the great demands upon 
human activities call this and that and the other man 
away, so that at the close only a few men, who have some 
special interest in the proceedings by reason of their closer 
acquaintance with a departed fellow-member, remain to pay 
the last tribute of respect to the deceased. 

In such a state of facts as this there is perhaps but little 
encouragement to enter upon a career in the public service. 
At such times a public career seems perhaps the most 
thankless and disappointing that can fall to the lot of any- 
one. But it is a part of the obligations of good citizenship 
to discharge in the best manner we can the official duties 
we may be called upon by the preference of our fellow- 
citizens to perform. And to the discharge of such duties, 
with a hearty, loyal friendship, with a thorough love of coun- 
try, with thorough loyalty to friends, and with a thorough 
appreciation of the every-day duties of life, came Francis 
B. Stockbridge, whose memory we honor to-day. 



70 Address of Mr. Blair of New Hampshire. 



Address of Mr. Blair. 

Mr. Speaker: Senator Stockbridge, with whose friend- 
ship I was honored while in the Senate, was a man of gen- 
ial and equable temperament, most courteous and obliging 
in manner, who never for a moment seemed to lose his 
self-poise, much less to act from impulse which endangered 
in the slightest degree his absolute self-possession. But 
his calmness of demeanor did not indicate any want of 
strong opinions and deep convictions or of determined will. 
He was really a man of great intellectual powers, and his 
views upon all questions were those of a strong thinker, 
guided and controlled by sound judgment and the prompt- 
ings of a philanthropic heart. 

He was of New England birth. In fact, Michigan has 
been called the New England of the West; and it is true, 
probably, that the influence of the three northerly States 
of that section of the country, Maine, New Hampshire, 
and Vermont, has been felt more strongly in the growth 
and development of Michigan than in almost any other of 
the States which have been begotten of the old thirteen. 
To New Hampshire the State of Michigan seems almost 
as a daughter, although the mother may not ever be too 
fondly remembered, for the great girls of the family do 
not always like to think of the little cradles in which they 
were rocked; but later on they will remember, for Cass 
and Chandler were from New Hampshire, and our hills 
are high enough for us to behold the mighty growth of 
Commonwealths born of her own institutions which tower 



Life and Character- of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 71 

along the lakes, in the great valley, and across the con- 
tinent, overtopping the mountain ranges with still more 
elevated moral and political institutions, to the far-setting 
sun and the Pacific seas. 

Senator STOCKBRIDGE was from our sister State of 
Maine, and it is enough to say of any man that he was a 
worthy son of that noble mother. He was a business man 
in the largest and best sense. He knew how to make 
monev without robbing his fellow-men under the forms 
of law, and the great fortune which he acquired by wise 
and prudent intellectual grasp of the resources and oppor- 
tunities which surrounded him, but which would have 
been wasted but for his capacity to comprehend and util- 
ize them, was as legitimately his own as the wage of the 
laborer for his daily toil. 

Wealth thus acquired does not provoke the envy of the 
less fortunate. They rejoice in it, rather, and point their 
children to such examples of the success of honest and 
generallv self-made men as a proof of the excellence of our 
institutions and the justification of the hopes which should 
stimulate their own honorable activities. 

The masses of the American people do not subscribe to 
the doctrine that "property is robbery," and they never 
will. But too often, as they look upon the millionaire, they 
know that robbery is sometimes the source of property. 

Men like Senator Stockbridge restore the public mind 
and demonstrate not only that honesty and fair dealing 
may result in great wealth, but by their wise and humane 
administration of vast possessions assure the people that 
a man is a man for all his wealth as well as for all his 
povertv. With the constantly increasing prejudice in our 



•J2 Address of Mr. Blair of New Hampshire. 

country against owners of immense wealth, it is some- 
thing — perhaps I may well say that it is high honor — to 
have acquired and administered great fortune so as to have 
won the approval of society as a rich man. 

Senator Stockbridge was a model for all rich men. 

The strong, solid business man, with his practical ideas 
and his old-fashioned honesty and conservative conduct in 
affairs, is an indispensable element in the successful states- 
manship of this country. We are preeminently a business 
country, and the happiness of our people depends upon the 
prevalence of sound and sensible ideas in economic affairs. 
More and more business men must come to the front in 
the making and administration of our laws. 

Of this increasingly important class of men in our 
higher politics Senator Stockbridge was one of the most 
influential and best illustrations that I have known. His 
loss in the very prime of life and while his influence was 
ever widening and increasing, and when his State and 
country hoped for his services for many years to come, was 
a distinct and serious calamity to the public, as it was a 
source of irreparable grief to his large circle of personal 
friends. 

But his high example will long oe remembered for the 
encouragement and instruction of those who survive, and 
the benedictions of those who loved him will keep his 
memory fresh and unfadinsr forever. 









Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 73 



Address of Mr. Avery. 

Mr. Speaker: The death roll of the Fifty-third Con- 
gress is a long one, and Michigan has contributed to it 
two honored names, J. Logan Chipman from this House, 
an able lawyer, an eloquent speaker, an upright judge, 
and an earnest and steadfast friend of the veteran soldiers; 
and Francis B. Stockbridge from the Senate, in whose 
memory these exercises are being held. 

Death comes unheralded, asks no questions, and will take 
no excuses, but leaves with the living its admonition, "Be 
ye always ready." 

Senator Stockbridge came of sturdy New England 
stock, and traced his ancestry in this country back to 1635, 
when a young Englishman by the name of John Stock- 
bridge, well born and prosperous, with his young wife 
and baby boy one year old, settled in Scituate, Mass. He 
bought a mill and built another, also a mansion house, 
which was used as a garrison during King Philip's war. 

Mill building and the milling business seem to have 
descended in almost regular line from this four-times great- 
grandfather clown to the late Senator. 

From this John Stockbridge have descended some of the 
most eminent men and women of New England — business 
men, merchants, lawyers, physicians, and scientists. 

About 1800 William Stockbridge, the grandfather of the 
late Senator, is described as the greatest landholder in 
Hanover, Mass. , and it is of record that he was a man of 



j 4 Address of Mr. Avery of Michigan. 

"ready wit, lively and sociable in his habits, an agreeable 
companion, and an industrious and upright citizen." 

He was a selectman in Hanover in 1812. His son John, 
father of the late Senator, was a physician, and settled in 
Bath, Me., in 1S05, where he practiced his profession for 
fortv-eight years, and was known as a "scientific and suc- 
cessful practitioner, a consistent and devoted friend, and an 
honest and upright man." 

Here Francis B. Stockbridge was born in 1826. His 
mother, Eliza Stockbridge, was the daughter of Hon. John 
Russell, for many years the editor and proprietor of the 
Boston Commercial Gazette. Here he attended the com- 
mon schools and academy until he was sixteen years of age, 
when he accepted a position as clerk in a wholesale dry- 
goods store in Boston. 

When barely twenty-one years of age, in 1847, lie turned 
his face westward, and from a clerk in a dry-goods store 
in Boston became at that early age a lumber merchant in 
Chicago. Soon after this he saw across the lake in Michi- 
gan an almost unbroken forest of pine. He saw also the 
practically unlimited demand for lumber the settlement of 
the vast prairies of Illinois and the West would create. 

At that time he could hardly have foreseen the wonder- 
ful growth of that marvel of the West, the city of the 
World's Exposition of 1893. But with true business in- 
stinct and sagacity lie saw his opportunity and added to 
his business as a lumber merchant that of a manufacturer 
of lumber in Michigan. And while yet a young man only 
twenty-seven years of age, in 1853, he took up his residence 
in Saugatuck, Mich., just across the lake from Chicago, 
where he had already mills engaged in cutting lumber. 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 75 

Here he rapidly extended his business until he became 
one of the most prominent and extensive lumber manufac- 
turers and dealers in the Northwest. 

In 1863 he married Miss Betsy Arnold, the estimable and 
accomplished daughter of Daniel Arnold, of Gun Plain, 
Allegan County, Mich., who survives him and is now liv- 
ing in retirement in this city. 

Always domestic in his tastes, genial and sociable, but 
of a somewhat retiring disposition, his social and domestic 
relations were ever most pleasant. At his elegant home in 
his own beloved city and State he was noted for his hos- 
pitality, and the humblest of his many friends always found 
as warm a welcome as those most favored by fortune. 

At the nation's capital he and his accomplished wife have 
moved in the most select circles and have been noted for 
the munificence and elegance of their entertainments and 
receptions; and many there are who will remember the 
genial host and hostess of the Stockbridge mansion. 

My first acquaintance with the late Senator was in 1S70, 
while he was serving his first term in the Michigan legis- 
lature. I there learned to respect him for his sterling 
qualities of head and heart. He was known for his good 
sense and attention to duty and as an industrious and pains- 
taking committee worker. He seldom took part in the 
discussion of subjects not directly connected with his com- 
mittee work. When he did he was brief, pointed, and clear 
and commanded the attention of all. 

He never posed as an orator, and yet he had a good, 
strong, clear voice, well modulated, and spoke directly to 
the question under discussion with great clearness and 
force, but without any attempt at ornamentation. 



76 Address of Mr. Avery of Michigan. 

He took an active part in several campaigns and was 
counted a well-informed and logical speaker. He always 
spoke within the comprehension of the common people, 
and made plain the question he discussed, and the people 
understood him and believed in his honesty and sincerity 
of purpose. 

After serving one term in the lower branch of the Mich- 
igan legislature he was elected to the State senate, where 
he served one term with the same conscientious fidelity to 
the interests of his constituents and State that he had dis- 
played in the lower branch. He was never an office seeker, 
but he was always ready to respond to any duty, public or 
private, imposed upon him. 

In 1874 he removed to Kalamazoo, one of the most 
beautiful of Michigan's inland cities, where he resided at 
the time of his death. Though never a politician in the 
general acceptation of the term, he was always interested 
in public affairs and kept thoroughly informed upon all 
questions affecting the interests of his State and nation, 
and he was frequently mentioned as one who would honor 
the State as its chief executive. 

In 1887 he was elected to the United States Senate to 
succeed Hon. Omar D. Conger, and in 1893 was reelected 
to succeed himself. In the Senate he was known and 
respected as a practical business Senator, as an industrious 
worker, and for his devotion to the interests of his constit- 
uents and State. He always kept in close touch with the 
people of his State, and the humblest citizen could write 
him at any time with perfect assurance that his business 
would receive prompt attention and his letter a respectful 
answer. 



Life and ( 'haracter of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 77 

While he was a Republican of pronounced views upon 
all the economic questions that divided the parties, and 
gave to these questions close study and practical applica- 
tion, he was never offensive in giving- expression to them, 
and thus by his courtesy and firmness won for himself the 
respect of his colleagues for his honesty of purpose and 
practical ability. 

He was a lover of the beautiful in art and nature. He 
adorned his home with rare and fine pictures and stocked 
his farm witli fine horses and thoroughbred cattle; and he 
never appeared to better advantage than in the domestic 
circle, when, having laid aside the cares of state and busi- 
ness, he gave himself up to the enjoyment cf the beautiful 
in his home and on his farm. As a business man he had a 
capacity and liking for large operations, and yet he was con- 
servative, methodical, and always thoroughly familiar with 
the details of every interest with which he was connected. 
And in business, as in political life, he was the soul of honor, 
and nothing so aroused the fire of his indignation as to have 
his confidence betrayed by one in whom he had confided. 

As a citizen he was ever mindful of the interests of his 
own city and State, and was in every way a broad-minded 
and generous man. In his private charities he followed 
the injunction of the Master, "Let not thy left hand know 
what thy right hand doeth," and many a needy and dis- 
tressed family in his neighborhood have had their prayers 
for food and warmth answered by an unseen agent. 

In his public benefactions he exercised the same careful 
thought that he did in his business investments, but he 
never neglected the charitable, educational, and religious 
institutions of his own city and State. 



7§ Address of Mr. Avery of Michigan. 

The Children's Home at Kalamazoo, the beautiful home 
of the Young Men's Christian Association at the same 
place, Kalamazoo and Albion colleges and Hobart Hall at 
Ann Arbor all bear eloquent testimony to his munificent 
and practical liberality. But more eloquent than all, per- 
haps, would be the words spoken from the room in the 
Woman's Hospital at Chicago endowed by his generosity, 
and which he constantly kept occupied by some unfortu- 
nate but deserving poor woman. 

In his death the State loses one closely identified with 
all its interests and a faithful guardian of everv one of 
them; very many who were wont to rely upon him a safe 
counselor and a generous benefactor; the Congress a safe 
and practical legislator, and the community in which he 
lived a public benefactor, an upright citizen, and a courtly 
Christian gentleman. 

The career of Senator Stockbridge is eminently worthy 
of emulation by the young men of to-day. He set up a 
high standard in early life and few men came nearer attain- 
ing it than he. 

Starting with a well-grounded Christian character, by 
his industry, perseverance, honesty, and an earnest and 
upright life he has assisted the upward movement of Chris- 
tian civilization, and has demonstrated that true worth out- 
weighs genius in the great struggle for success in life. 

He lived an active, earnest life, was faithful to every 
trust, and his "works do follow him." 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 79 



ADDRESS OF MR. AITKE 

Mr. SPEAKER: The official records which originate in 
the proceedings on brief occasions like this, when a pause 
is made for a time to render honor to the distinguished 
dead of the Republic, have come to make up what may 
indeed be called a voluminous mass of memorial litera- 
ture. If all these records of loving words and tender trib- 
ute, dating back to the formative period of the country 
and probably now scattered through many places at the 
seat of Government, could be gathered into one depository, 
one classified aggregation of regretful volumes, there would 
be formed a national library of sorrow around which the 
greatest interest might center — a Plutarchian collection 
in which, including the lives of chiefs of the State as well 
as of those who have in humbler capacity been useful to 
their country, would be found curious facts in biographical 
data, recorded triumphs won by determination over strange 
and peculiarly unfavorable combinations of adverse circum- 
stances, loving tributes on characteristics which have won 
human affection as well as admiration, stirring eulogies on 
shining deeds which inspire to patriotism. 

Seldom, however, in the whole long list of occasions 
preceding this which have given rise to this mass of memo- 
rial literature have those attractive, those ever-fascinating 
human qualities — implicit loyalty to friends, warm-hearted 
generositv, and manlv sturdiness — deserved more trulv, 
more justly the tribute of discriminating praise than to-day. 
These are the qualities which I as a boy at the fireside 



s 



8o Address of Mr. Attken of Michigan. 

heard attributed to the dead Colonel Stockbridge. That 
which as a boy I knew but in imperfection I came to know 
with the more perfect knowledge of .personal association 
and positive conviction as a man. 

These are the qualities of which I would more especially 
speak as I add to other and probably more adequate esti- 
mates of his character and services these few poor words 
which, as a friend, I can not refrain from speaking while 
the consideration of resolutions in his memory remains the 
pending business before the House. 

The detailed secret history of political events of the 
greatest magnitude and significance in the State he repre- 
sented would show, Mr. Speaker, that Senator Stock- 
bridge's loyalty to his friends extended even to the point 
of his own self-sacrifice, and no man in political life can 
do more, in honor, than to sacrifice for his friends his 
own prospects for the very highest preferment, and throw 
away the opportunity which is rarely again ever presented. 
Fortunately, in the Senator's case, the opportunity sup- 
posed to be forever lost came with the lapse of time, and he 
was the recipient of the most flattering evidence of favor 
within the power of his people to bestow. It is, perhaps, 
known to but few that the declination of golden oppor- 
tunity in the original instance was due to a refusal to 
assume a position in which a subsequent suspicion, even, 
of disloyalty to a friend might attach to his actions. In 
the reciprocal operation of the affections one of the most 
eloquent evidences of his own careful observance of the 
claims of friendship was the great personal following 
which he possessed, bound to him by bonds of steel, in his 
own State, and which, in its long list of devoted friends 



Life and Character of Francis Browne Stockbridge. 81 

and acquaintances personally and intimately known to 
him, was perhaps the largest possessed by any man in 
Michigan at the time of his death. 

His helpfulness' to others shows the generosity of his 
character even more strikingly than do the benevolences 
and endowments to deserving institutions which exist as 
monuments to his memory among his former constituents. 
His interest in young men of merit and industry was 
great, and in very many cities of his State are successful 
citizens who to-day credit much of what they have at- 
tained to his advice and to other aid of a more practical 
and substantial character. The number of instances in 
which he has been quietly but effectively helpful to others 
who had to contend with unfavorable surroundings in 
beginning their life work will never be known. 

Among instances within my own personal knowledge is 
one which was brought to my attention as late as during 
the present week and which produced a deep and lasting 
impression because of the unusual and heretofore unsus- 
pected circumstances connected with the incident. Its nar- 
rator describes the bluff colonel's entrance into a law office 
in the city of Grand Rapids some years ago. There, as it 
chanced, he found alone a forlorn young student of whose 
situation, sharing precociously in the burdens of his strait- 
ened parents' condition, a pathetic little picture was drawn. 
The office boy wept, while the colonel, although not un- 
sympathetic, laughed. When the story of his parents' dis- 
tress had after a time been drawn from the lad, the colonel 
afforded the encouragement of hearty, stimulating words. 
He did more on leaving. Without a hint or suggestion 
from the lad to prompt such a course, he slipped into the 
S Mis 152 6 



L1UKHKY Uh LUMUKtbo 



013 704 823 1 j 



82 Address of Mr. Aitken 0/ Michigan. 

hands of his new-found chance acquaintance that which 
tearful, wondering eyes presently discerned as the still more 
substantial encouragement of a three-hundred dollar check, 
a fortune for one of the boy's age. 

The ambitious law student who was the recipient of this 
unexpected but most kindly assistance long ago demon- 
strated the soundness of the donor's judgment by attaining 
through industry a station in life in which the repayment 
of the extraordinary loan became possible. To-day, as 
the Congressman-elect from the second city of Michigan, 
this former office boy looks back on this act of exceptional 
character as a bright something in one of the most critical 
periods of his life's history and one from which results 
of the greatest importance proceeded. 

Trifling as this incident, briefly narrated in this place, 
far from the scene of its occurrence, may seem in some of 
its details, I have not forborne to make reference to it as a 
specific instance illustrating, as mere generalization could 
not, traits of manliness and generosity which have caused 
thousands of hearts to warm toward that winning person- 
ality which has gone from the midst of those who mourn 
his departure. Aside from these more engaging qualities 
of amiability, he was a man of great force of character, 
with an energy and industry of his own which could but 
have made him and did make him a more than ordinarily 
successful American. Although he did not have the advan- 
tages of a liberal scholastic education, all who knew him 
will concede to him liberality of views. Those intimately 
associated with him found, too, a refinement of taste in 
art and literature which others might not have suspected, 
and outside of the State metropolis he was undoubtedly 



